Thursday, August 23, 2012

It’s raining hard here today, so this is a perfect time to write in
detail about my rationale for using iPads in the field this year. As I
mentioned in a previous post, I’ve wanted to digitally collect primary
data from the moment I began volunteering in archaeology nearly 20 years
ago. There are a number of reasons for this, including: 1) reducing the
transcription (field notes), digital tracing (hand drawn maps), and
database entry (catalogues and metric data) time which follows every
field season, 2) minimizing errors that can result from transcription,
and 3) reducing labour costs associated with digitally recreating
handwritten data.

iPads charging after a hard day’s work. The lowest battery level was 89%.

There are a number of archaeologists using tablet computers in “paperless archaeology” projects around the world (please see http://paperlessarchaeology.com/
for an excellent blog on the topic). Many of these projects use mobile
database apps or custom web apps to submit data directly to a networked
database. These are extremely useful applications that have great
potential, especially in locations where internet access is constantly
available.

Archaeologists digging outside the town of Ayvacık in the Çanakkale Province
of north-western Turkey have unearthed what they believe are hairpins used by
women some 2,200 years ago - to style their hair.

The pins date back to the second century BC and suggest the idea of style and
fashion were very much alive even back then and women of ancient times were as
keen on fashion as they are today. Who knows... they might even have had a Kate
Middleton-like celebrity back then.

"The hairpins show us that there
was a high demand for them in ancient times. Maybe their existence shows us that
there was a small atelier for hair pin production here," Professor Nurettin
Arslan, of Turkey's Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, was quoted as saying by the Hurriyet Daily News.

The iPad will be used to take photographs, make notes and sketches,
and record data from digs, rather than collate them post trip, as is the
norm. It is hoped that the flexible and portable nature of the device
will enable speedier, more efficient and accurate recording and analysis
of the data gathered onsite.

Peta selected a 64GB iPad 2, one of the most popular tablets in the
marketplace, as her chosen mobile device. An additional stylus has been
provided to enable sketch work.

The
annual expert exploration of Gorham’s Cave is well under way, but the
access to the potential World Heritage Site is an arduous daily trek for
the volunteers, as it was for the local media when they were invited to
see what was happening down there.

No
less than 350 steep and broken steps, with a rickety handrail, have to
be negotiated, followed by about 100 metres across the rockiest beach
imaginable – a ragged mix of boulders, smaller rocks, and fossilised
sand, with no clear path through, which now cover the former Governor’s
Beach, the rubble having been thrown there during tunnel excavations in
the last thirty years

Our
Gibraltar Museum guide, Dr Geraldine Finlayson, told the
half-heat-stricken press corps that we were lucky, as the volunteer
archaeologists not only have to make the journey twice a day, but they
also carry their food, water, equipment, and petrol for the generators
down with them, and then lug sacks of samples back up. No wonder they
opt to spend their lunch break down there in the shade of the cave’s
massive entrance. In fact, all food is eaten outside to avoid
contamination of the cave floor.

Excavations are underway to unearth the mysteries of Devon’s newly discovered settlement dating back to Roman times.

Following the recent discovery of over 100 Roman coins in fields several
miles west of Exeter, evidence of an extensive settlement including
roundhouses, quarry pits and track ways was found from a geophysical
survey. The site covers at least 13 fields and it the first of its kind
in Devon which could force us to rewrite the history of the Romans in
Britain.

Dr Ioana Oltean and Dr Martin Pitts, the University of Exeter’s Roman
archaeology specialists, together with Danielle Wootton, Devon Finds
Liaison Officer for the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS), Sam Moorhead,
National Finds Adviser for Iron Age and Roman coins for the PAS at the
British Museum, and Bill Horner, County Archaeologist at Devon County
Council are leading the archaeological research which is proving to show
the influence of Roman culture to be greater than previously thought.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

A child’s grave and pits full of bone shards, tooth enamel, bead
necklaces and Roman roofing have been discovered in the massive
archaeological dig which has turned Camp Farm, in Maryport, into a
hotbed of Roman finds this summer.

The westernmost pit at the
Cumbria site has been revealed as a long cist grave. Its stone lining is
typical of burials at the end and shortly after the Roman era in the
west of Europe and southern Scotland.

“We’re discovering new
things on an almost daily basis which are giving us new insights into
what happened on this site across hundreds of years,” said Tony Wilmot,
the site director.

“What we think we’re looking at is a Christian cemetery close to a sequence of Christian religious buildings.

The Maryport archaeological excavation site at Camp
Farm, next to the Roman fort and settlement, has just closed after a ten
week season. It has once again yielded new information about life on
the Roman frontier in the north of England.

This is the second year a team of Newcastle University archaeologists
and volunteers led by project director Professor Ian Haynes with site
director Tony Wilmott has made discoveries which challenge and inform
archaeological theories held worldwide.

Roman and early Christian finds

Bone fragments, caps of tooth enamel, a glass bead necklace and a
tiny fragment of ancient textile have been found in newly discovered
early Christian graves. Other finds include carved Roman stone work and
the first complete altar stone to be unearthed at the site since 1870
when the internationally famous cache of 17 was discovered by landowner
and antiquarian Humphrey Senhouse and his team.

Cambridge scientists claim DNA overlap between Neanderthals and modern humans is a remnant of a common ancestor

When scientists discovered a few years ago that modern humans shared
swaths of DNA with long-extinct Neanderthals, their best explanation
was that at some point the two species must have interbred.

Now a
study by scientists at the University of Cambridge has questioned this
conclusion, hypothesising instead that the DNA overlap is a remnant of a
common ancestor of both Neanderthals and modern humans.

When the genetic sequence of Homoneanderthalensis was published in 2010, one of the headline findings
was that most people outside Africa could trace up to 4% of their DNA
to Neanderthals. This was widely interpreted as an indication of
interbreeding between Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens just
as the latter were leaving Africa. The two species would have lived in
the same regions around modern-day Europe, until Neanderthals died out
about 30,000 years ago.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

This is the first skull from the 2012 dig with a mortal wound caused by a spear or an arrow. Credit: Curator Ejvind Hertz, Skanderborg Museum

A FRACTURED SKULL AND A THIGH BONE HACKED IN HALF — FINDS OF DAMAGED HUMAN BONES ALONG WITH AXES, SPEARS, CLUBS AND SHIELDS CONFIRM THAT THE BOG AT ALKEN ENGE WAS THE SITE OF VIOLENT CONFLICT.

‘It’s clear that this must have been a quite far-reaching and dramatic event that must have had profound effect on the society of the time,’ explains Project Manager Mads Kähler Holst, professor of archaeology at Aarhus University.

For almost two months now, Dr Holst and a team of fifteen archaeologists and geologists have been working to excavate the remains of a large army that was sacrificed at the site around the time of the birth of Christ. The skeletal remains of hundreds of warriors lie buried in the Alken Enge wetlands near Lake Mossø in East Jutland, Denmark.

Archaeology in Switzerland has been held up as a shining example in other countries, but its future is threatened by a lack of coordination and legislation defining how it should be funded.

Chevenez in canton Jura: it’s here that a well-known watchmaker is building a new factory on a tight schedule. It’s also here that the initial spadework revealed what could be a major archeological site.

The local authorities had to scramble to save what they could find in a few short weeks, after the firm building the factory agreed to put construction on hold. The archaeologists were able to collect around 5,000 artifacts from different periods, but had little time to study them within their context.

There was pressure to act fast, with around 150 new jobs up for grabs at the plant. The deadline for completing construction is the end of October, when machinery will be delivered to the site.

“They had to go over their plans for the construction site, and they came up with another option which meant they would begin some of the construction while we were still excavating,” said Robert Fellner, Jura cantonal archaeologist. “So we were able to find a satisfying solution for both parties even if at the beginning they weren’t too happy.”

Archaeologists in Vélez-Málaga Town Hall have discovered a Roman Amphora, dating from the first century.

The Amphora [Credit: EFE]

The Amphora had been lost for years, but was found again in 1960 before being forgotten once again.

What’s more the experts say it’s still full of wine which they think is in ‘perfect conditions’ because the vessel is hermetically sealed.

The Councillor for Culture and Heritage in Vélez-Málaga, José Antonio Fortes (PP), explain to journalists that the amphora was hermetically ‘sealed with resin and lime, and contains between 25 and 30 litres of a liquid which the municipal technicians think is wine.

Destined to be part of the merchandise going from Hispania to Rome, the Amphora was left forgotten in Vélez-Málaga Town Hall, found in 1960 in the basements of the Beniel Palace, and then forgotten again in the municipal buildings.

The metre-high Amphora will form part of the new museum on Vélez-Málaga History, which will hold Mesopotamian, Greek, Phoenician and Roman items in the old Hospital de San Juan de Dios, which was founded at the end of the 15th century by the Catholic Kings.

The contents are to be analyzed in a few days time, by a specialist laboratory. Seems a bit of a shame, but Cheers!

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Cowgate (Highlighted) – the main route for driving cattle to the Grassmarket from the East : Wiki Commons

The final remains of a range of buildings dating back to the 16th
Century have been discovered by archaeologists digging in Edinburgh’s
Cowgate.

Archaeologists digging in the historic Edinburgh street have
discovered a series of buildings dating back to the 16th century and
artefacts ranging from combs to a primitive board game.

The last phase of excavation of the site, which is being developed by
SoCo, has revealed the street frontages of the 16th-century buildings
previously discovered.

Experts have already described the finds as among the most important ever uncovered in the Capital.

The latest findings are the final phase of architectural work which
has been going on for the past ten years, following a major fire which
raged for more than 52 hours and destroyed 13 buildings in 2002.

Have you been along to the Developing City exhibition
in the Walbrook Building yet? If not, you really should — it’s a
tightly curated show about the history and future of London, including
some impressive models and maps…Architecture Porn as Ian Visits describes it.

Another
good reason to pop along presents itself on 17 August, when three
speakers from Museum of London Archaeology and one from New London
Architecture discuss recent archaeological digs in the Square Mile and
beyond.

Areas of discussion will include some of the
earliest Roman finds around Walbrook and news of the discoveries from
the nearby excavations at the site of the Temple of Mithras; recent
discoveries from developments along Cheapside, whose contemporary retail
focus has strong roots in antiquity; the City’s vital trade links
through the Hanseatic League, uncovered through discoveries nearby at
Cannon Street; and discoveries from archaeological work in the Lea
Valley that illustrate the vital support it provided to post-medieval
and industrial development in the centre.

ENGINEERS repairing a York sewer found more than they bargained for when they uncovered a Roman mosaic floor.

A 120-metre section of damaged Victorian sewer in Toft Green was in
the process of being replaced when workers spotted the mosaic tiles.

Work immediately stopped and a team of archaeologists stepped in to
carry out a detailed study of the site, confirming that engineers had
stumbled upon a Roman mosaic floor, dating back to the 3rd
to 4th Centuries AD.

After two weeks of excavations the floor has been painstakingly removed.

An almost intact Roman ship has been found in the sea off the town on Varazze, some 18 miles from Genova, Italy.

The ship, a navis oneraria, or merchant vessel, was
located at a depth of about 200 feet thanks to a remotely operated
vehicle (ROV) following tips from fishermen who had caught some jars in
their nets.

The ship sank about 2,000 years ago on her trade route between Spain
and central Italy with a full cargo of more than 200 amphorae.

Test on some of the recovered jars revealed they contained pickled
fish, grain, wine and oil. The foodstuffs were traded in Spain for
other goods.

"There are some broken jars around the wreck, but we believe that
most of the amphorae inside the ship are still sealed and food filled,"
Lt. Col. Francesco Schilardi, who led the Carabinieri Subacquei (police
divers), said.

Friday, August 10, 2012

A battle-scarred, eighth-century town unearthed in northern Germany may
be the earliest Viking settlement in the historical record,
archaeologists announced recently.
Ongoing excavations at Füsing (map), near the Danish border, link the
site to the "lost" Viking town of Sliasthorp—first recorded in A.D. 804
by royal scribes of the powerful Frankish ruler Charlemagne.
Used as a military base by the earliest Scandinavian kings, Sliasthorp's
location was unknown until now, said dig leader Andres Dobat, of Aarhus
University in Denmark.
Whether it proves to be the historic town or not, the site offers
valuable insights into military organization and town planning in the
early Viking era, according to the study team.
Some 30 buildings have been uncovered since excavations began in 2010.

In 1964, a hoard found at Corbridge, in the thick of Hadrian’s Wall
Country, astonished curators thanks to its well-preserved set of tools,
weaponry, wax writing tablets, papyrus and other items essential to the
2nd century Roman soldier.

Almost 50 years on, an interactive display in the Roman Town aims to
give the public an entirely new picture of the contents of the
iron-bound, leather-covered wooden chest, bringing together the work of
Roman specialists still debating precisely why the collection was
buried.

“When the hoard was first discovered, it was like finding
a time capsule from the past,” says Kevin Booth, a senior curator at
site owners English Heritage.

Archaeologists excavating a field near the Senhouse museum in Maryport have discovered a Roman military altar.

Seventeen altar stones were originally found on the site in 1870.This latest addition comes after three months of digging on the site.

Volunteer John Murray, a Maryport resident, made the find. He told ITV Border:

"I decided to come back and do this year's dig as I knew there was something to find."I was drawn to this pit in particular and I couldn't believe it when
we realised it was an altar stone. It is a very special find."

A polished axe from the PPNB period. American Friends of Tel Aviv University

Transition from hunting to agricultural society parallels development of woodworking tools, TAU research reveals

During the Neolithic Age (approximately 10000–6000
BCE), early man evolved from hunter-gatherer to farmer and
agriculturalist, living in larger, permanent settlements with a variety
of domesticated animals and plant life. This transition brought about
significant changes in terms of the economy, architecture, man’s
relationship to the environment, and more.

Now Dr. Ran Barkai of Tel Aviv University‘s Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations has
shed new light on this milestone in human evolution, demonstrating a
direct connection between the development of an agricultural society and
the development of woodworking tools.

An upper skull found in 1972 and a newly discovered lower jaw are both thought to belong to the enigmatic hominin species Homo rudolfensis.

Fossilized skulls show that at least three distinct species belonging to thegenus Homo existed between 1.7 million and 2 million years ago, settling a long-standing debate in palaeoanthropology.

A study published this week in Nature1 focuses on Homo rudolfensis,
a hominin with a relatively flat face, which was first identified from a
single large skull in 1972. Several other big-skulled fossils have been
attributed to the species since then, but none has included both a face
and a lower jaw. This has been problematic: in palaeoanthropology,
faces and jaws function like fingerprints for identifying a specimen as a
particular species (which is indicated by the second word in a Linnaean
title, such as 'rudolfensis'), as opposed to the broader grouping of genus (the first word, as in'Homo').

Without complete skulls, it has been difficult to reach a consensus on whether specimens attributed to H. rudolfensis are genuinely members of a distinct species, or actually belong to other Homo species that lived around the same time, such as Homo habilis or Homo erectus. Understanding how many different Homo species
there were, and whether they lived concurrently, would help to
determine whether the history of the human lineage saw fierce
competition between multiple hominins, or a steady succession from one
species to another.

Wednesday, August 08, 2012

A team of archaeologists from Inrap have
uncovered a Roman shipwreck in southern France, in what was once part of
the bustling ancient port of Antibes.

Ancient Antipolis

Antibes was known as Antipolis – a Greek colony – and
situated on the coast of Provence, it occupied a privileged position on
the sea routes linking Marseilles to the Italian coast and contained a
natural harbour – Anse Saint-Roch – which protected shipping from
prevailing winds.

The harbour

The archaeologists have been exploring the ancient harbour basin that
had progressively silted up in antiquity. The basin contains a wealth
of objects and information from the third century BC to the sixth
century AD. Tens of thousands of objects have already been excavated
from the bay of Saint-Roch, including goods from the Mediterranean
basin, illustrating the vitality of the ancient port and trade in this
part of the world.

Remains of an Anglo
Saxon warrior, buried with his spear and a bronze-bound drinking cup,
after he was was discovered by modern soldiers on a rehabilitation
programme. Photograph: Ministry of Defence

An excavation on Salisbury plain has proved an unusually
emotional experience for the volunteer archaeologists, as soldiers
recovering from injuries received in Afghanistan have made a surprise
discovery: the remains of warriors who died more than 1,400 years ago.

Led by the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) and the Army, partners from Wessex Archaeology
were astonished by the haul. Operation Nightingale is an award-winning
project to give soldiers new skills and interests as part of their
rehabilitation. The excavation was expected to produce modest results
after earlier digs had turned up empty army ration packs and spent
ammunition. Instead, they revealed their ancient counterparts, including
an Anglo Saxon soldier buried with his spear and what must have been a
treasured possession, a small wooden drinking cup decorated with bronze
bands.

About Me

I am a freelance archaeologist and Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland specializing in the medieval period. I have worked as a field archaeologist for the Department of Environment (Northern Ireland) and the Museum of London. I have been involved in continuing education for many years and have taught for the University of Oxford Department for Continuing Education (OUDCE) and the Universities of London, Essex, Ulster, and the London College of the University of Notre Dame, and I was the Archaeological Consultant for Southwark Cathedral. I am the author of and tutor for an OUDCE online course on the Vikings, and the Programme Director and Academic Director for the Oxford Experience Summer School.